Some 600 million EUR have been contracted under OP Transport by the end of 2010, Deputy Minister of Transport, Information Technologies and Communications and Authorizing Officer of OP Transport Management Authority Ivailo Moskovski said today. He unveiled a forum which was to present the progress within the operational programme. The above figure means that almost 30% of the programme's budget has been negotiated.

Some 365 million EUR have been negotiated during the present year alone, which represents 60% of all agreed funds within the programme since 2007. The main part of them are for the completion of the Trakiya Motorway (Lots 2, 3 and 4).

Ivailo Moskovski said that the Managing Authority has approved the application form for the Purvomai-Svilengrad railway project. On 1 December it was sent to the European Commission for consideration and final approval. The grant aid within the project is equivalent to some 180 million EUR.

"The progress achieved within OP Transport in 2010 makes us believe that we are on the right track," the Deputy Minister said. "We have set ambitious goals to ourselves in an effort to compensate for the delay of the past years. One of the steps to achieve this is by the so-called "overbooking" or the inclusion of projects exceeding the programme's total budget. The purpose is to give priority to projects that have already been launched or the preparation of which is at the most advanced stage Ivailo Moskovski also explained.

Within the forum the beneficiaries presented the progress within the separate projects. They reported almost 50% completion of both stages of the Sofia underground project. The physical implementation of the work on the Trakiya Motorway exceeds 20% (for all three lots) and implementation of the Svilengrad - Turkish/Greek border railway project has reached 36%.

Participating in the forum were representatives of the central government, non-governmental organizations, the scientific community and mass media.